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Amid a storm of public disdain, Delta’s CEO scores PR gold

People love to hate the U.S. Postal Service. Perhaps it’s the long lines, dour workers, lost packages, or maybe the polyester uniforms.

Airlines are also easy to despise. I can’t remember the last time I took a flight and some old timer didn’t say something along the lines of, “Flying used to be glamorous.”

Glamorous? For me, on the glamour scale, flying ranks just below riding the bus in middle school.

Flying is such a miserable experience that the American Customer Satisfaction Index ranks it lower than the Postal Service. Airlines narrowly beat out cable companies, but I have yet to meet a Chicagoan who’s satisfied with their cable TV and Internet provider.

There were exceptions to the rule, however. JetBlue and Southwest airlines led the industry.

Here’s something that might improve Delta Air Lines’ ranking: It garnered positive PR points after CEO Richard Anderson relinquished his seat on an overbooked flight to a desperate mom eager to pick up her child.

“It was you, Richard Anderson, who gave up your seat for me. It was you, the Delta CEO, who helped me with my bag. It was you, acting just like an ordinary Mr. Anderson, who showed me to my seat. You, Richard Anderson, the CEO of Delta, did all that for me, just an average, middle-aged woman with, as far as anyone at Delta knew, no special reason to get home.”

For more on the American Customer Satisfaction Index, check out the Los Angeles Times.